A New World Wreathed in Freedom - An Argentine Revolution TL
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That's an admittedly low bar to clear, though still not necessarily true for Europe ITTL. The Americas? Absolutely, roaring 20s up and down the New World. Europe? Well, France lost a generation of men and saw its industrial north devastated just as bad as OTL, so they're in a similar boat as OTL. The UK has been traumatized by the experience. Italy gained slightly more land along the Adriatic, but with its dreams of empire in the Balkans squandered before the war was even officially done the myth of the mutilated peace will still develop.
Germany? Well, its OTL political unrest could certainly have gotten even worse (and the fact that the only way to get socialists on the Danube is for socialists in Berlin being a bigger threat and distracting everyone else means that... well it's in my notes for a reason), and its defeat is still tremendously traumatizing ITTL. Austria-Hungary will either explode or implode violently, and the erection of borders in the former territories of the Russian, Austrohungarian and Ottoman empires will disrupt trade and breed tension. The only "improvement" I'm looking at is Ukraine remaining independent.
Yeah, tho I think the roaring 20s would still be quite different with a more evenly developed New World, even if the general concept of a post-war boom is still there.
While TTL US is still clearly Great Power material, it has much less potential than OTL, and perhaps will not be able to fill the gap in the financial market left by the war ruining european economies as naturally as it did OTL.
As for the UP and the rest of the South American countries, while they are not as dependent on them as OTL given their higher development, before the war they probably still relied on European (mostly British as far as the UK goes, but I could also see the other European powers having some country they favor a bit more in South America) capital for their economies. This capital will likely stop coming in volume since the European countries are not capable of projecting financial power as they did before WW1 (Like it happend in OTL, fucking Argentina sideways in the process), and while SA countries have more tools to deal with it ITTL, weaning themselves off it will be a process that takes effort and some restructuring of the economies.
While i think the butterflies are enough for Nazism never to rise to power, an average reactionary dictatorship is probably the most likely option for Germany.
How would Ukraine remain independent? I don't see either France or Britain meddling too much that far into Eastern Europe, and Russia would never let it go willingly.
The US is still an order of magnitude more populous, developed, industrialized and powerful than the "big 4" Latin American countries - UP, Mexico, Colombia and Brazil - and its sphere of influence (with a positive feedback loop due to its close ties to and influence in Colombia) in the Caribbean is probably just as strong ITTL.
I envision the post-GW financial crisis being sharper but shorter: more American countries would have started lending to the Entente, so the defaults and crashes would affect more countries, but its impact would be diluted somewhat. Basically, there'd be a withdrawal of European capitals, and it would sting more for more countries in the short term, but on the other hand, there is enough financial heft going around between the big 4 + USA to allow local/regional capitals to move in not long after.
As for European preferences among Latin American countries: the UK and the UP go way back; Brazil gravitated towards France, primarily because of how sympathetic to the UP the UK was (but relations with London are still friendly); Colombia for its part is the USA's closest ally in Latin America (ironically, this insulates Colombia from the financial crunch in a way that UP and Brazil won't be).
The interesting dynamic that might emerge from this is that Colombia may be the best positioned (financially if nothing else) to spearhead a new wave of panamericanism in the 1920s.
It's certainly not willingly: it would involve a Soviet/Russian defeat against the Ukrainians, much like their defeat against the Polish. The exact limits of this polity is still up in the air; the Russian Civil War is still "unfinished" in my notes/head.
Better in a "the rising tide lifts all ships" sense, though I don't have many details of the specifics. IIRC, the monarchy has survived ITTL, which is the biggest divergence for Brazil, but that is also a consequence of my own lack of understanding of Brazilian history. Any comments or suggestions for other parts of the TL - as it is essentially an Argentina-focused TL - are always welcome and appreciated.
Maybe the Polish/Ukranian Kiev offensive somehow succeeds? I'm not sure how plausible that is tho.
There was a lot of back-stabbing and double-crossing involved in the Soviet reconquest of Ukraine, if the Black Army makes a deal with the Provisional Republic instead of the Ukrainian Bolsheviks it might swing the war in Ukraine against the Soviets. At least enough for the country to survive into the 1920s and 30s, the 30s would be its own set of issues.
The 30s are also a whole new beast without the Nazis. A sane Germany might well choose to align itself with Poland.
Sanity and irredentist jingoism tend to cancel out in foreign policy - it very nearly put Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany on a collision course in Austria for instance - so as long as the issue of Danzig looms large, Germany and Poland will square off. The wild card is the Red Danube: anschluss would be off the table (since Austria is still a leading member of a larger polity), but they'd have a lot of incentives to overcome ideological differences and align themselves because of shared claims against Poland.
My perception is that, if you want a non-Bolshevik Russia, your best option is the Left-Social Revolutionaries (or Left-SR's), of course, if the conditions for the split of the SR Party occurs as in OTL. Otherwise, your other options can be:
1. A multiparty socialist Soviet Russia, or in other words, the Bolsheviks allowing the Left-SR and the Mensheviks to participate in the SOVNARKOM.
2. The Whites winning the Russian Civil War but not restoring the monarchy, similar to Kaiserreich' Russia.
I think that perhaps, another option 'd be that the Russian civil war would end/get prolonged in a kind of stalemate, without any side able to get the upper hand/overcome the other's defenses...
I think that it would depend on as much, it would diverge TTL French Republic foreign policy (in E. Europe) and her TTL support/relation with the OTL Little Entente countries... So, and assuming that it would develop more or less similar to IOTL...
My take would be that Poland probably, would be closer/aligned with France and through her, to already aligned Czechoslovakia, Romania and Yugoslavia. Whiled Hungary and the post Alt Peace Treaty Germany that, perhaps, would lean each other closer. While Austria, perhaps out of necessity would be entered in the Italian orbit....
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I don’t think the Little Entente had many chances to realistically last after the Great Depression. French sponsorship can only go far enough when the French themselves are broke. Added to that, there’s the inherent geographical complications of the alliance. The only land link between Czechoslovakia and the rest runs through the Carpathians, which complicates logistics a lot, and Romania and Yugoslavia were generally very underdeveloped regions. Czechoslovakia also has the Sudetendeutsch issue that is a powderkeg, not to mention the ethnic tensions in Yugoslavia. A resurgent Russia, if it happens, would also prompt Romania to lean closer to Germany, since the odds of France and Britain actually helping in case of an invasion are low.
I also think that a somewhat sane Germany would be able to have Britain and France allow them a free hand in Eastern Europe if they are not as reckless as the Nazis. They just need to space their actions more and be more diplomatic and patient.
Perhaps, but, i think that it would depend on as TTL Weimar Germany would survive and if not what kind of regime would substitute it and as would deal and cope with the '29 crash and the great depression effects on the German economy...
IMO any government with two collective braincells would be able to pull it off. Of course a surviving democratic Weimar would have an easier time than your run of the mill Prussian general, but as long as they have restraint they should manage. Keep a conciliatory policy to the west; no naval buildup, later remilitarization of the Rhineland, try and keep the British public on side, and generally avoid a Franco British rearmament, all the while obtaining concessions in the East.
Read the TL so far and I love it! Latin America really needs more love here. Some questions:
- Why wasn't there some sort of attempt back then to get Chile to join the United Provinces?
- How did the UP keep the Malvinas? Like was Britain ok with it? The British didn't make any moves there? And if they did what did the UP have to do to get it? And what about the South Sandwich Islands?
- Does the way the Spanish Americas gain their independence impact Spain differently? Especially since it looks like they took an even bigger L than OTL?
- Does Colombia try to invade Cuba or Puerto Rico?
- How does Bolivar not screw things up and cause his country to break up?
- Does Central America stay together somehow?
- Does Napoleon III try to instate a Habsburg in Mexico this time?
- Why is there no movement to change the UP's name to Argentina this time?
- Is blanqueamiento a thing in the UP?
- Will we hear about a certain military officer in the UP who in OTL had a certain ideology named after him that OTL Argentine politicians stick a lot to these days?
- How will coca fair in this TL? Will cocaine be a thing?
- Why has the conflict in Peru grind to a halt? Won't there be anyone trying to start shit again?
- Has Brazil seriously considered fighting the UP again or no?
- What is the US's relations like with the UP, Colombia, and other South American nations?
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Thanks! I've enjoyed the notifications from your binge reading, glad you loved it!
Chile was not governed from Buenos Aires, and the United Provinces had enough trouble keeping what it theoretically "inherited" from the viceroyalty as it was (it didn't come up again beyond the Luso-Platinean war, but Paraguay's relationship with Buenos Aires was tenuous for decades). Beyond the lack of a claim to it, there were two other reasons: solidarity, as Platinean volunteers have been fighting in Chile pretty much from the beginning of the war, and the fact that an invasion would be prohibitively expensive and unlikely to succeed (keep in mind that Chile's navy is of comparable size, while its small army is bolstered by having the Andes as a natural barrier).
The UK took the Malvinas in 1833 IOTL; ITTL, the country is stable and at peace (and has a vested interest in maintaining a naval presence in the South Atlantic), so the Platinean base is larger and more permanent. British ships come and go freely from Platinean ports, and there simply isn't a need to take it from Buenos Aires. AFAICT, the South Sandwich Islands are more or less uninhabitable, so I'm not sure what to do with them - the easy answer is that they're administered as part of the Malvinas, but I don't know if they were part of the cession Buenos Aires/Argentina inherited from Spain.
Spain has a really bad 19th century ITTL, there's no doubt about it. I daresay there's a strong chance it's a Republic by this point, though Spain's fate is a bit nebulous in my notes.
It might invade Puerto Rico, but it does not so much "invade" Cuba as support its local revolutionaries.
A shorter war is a big part of it, his attention isn't as focused on southern Perú with the Spanish expelled earlier. There is an element of handwaviness to it though, as I realized only too late that - absent changes in the trajectory of New Granada's revolution - the Gran Colombian experiment was likely doomed.
It does, mostly predicated on the belief that an earlier end to the Wars of Latin American independence might bring wider stability, considering how damaging the later years of the wars were for the region. This has fascinating ramification for the late 19th and early 20th century, as there are now two prime locations for a canal.
There is no Mexican adventure for Napoleon III ITTL, which is for the best for everyone involved IMO.
Well, the country is likely called Argentina often informally, in the same way that the United States are frequently called America. But the country's formal name as established in 1811 (and the same is technically true for Argentina IOTL prior to the 1819 collapse of the national government established in the Revolution) is the United Provinces of the River Plate, so it is officially known as the United Provinces and its most common patronymic is "platinean". Another way to think of it is in terms of the United Kingdom, with Argentina playing a similar role to England: it may occasionally be used interchangeably, but this would understandably upset residents of not!Argentina (Bolivia/Castellia, Paraguay and Uruguay) who are also inheritors of viceroyal institutions.
Colorism is probably rampant in the UP, yeah. There are parts of the country where it's a lot less of a problem, but it's likely still a big filter for the leap to national politics or fame.
Nah, he's safely butterflied away so far past the POD. There may be a similar political movement, but only to the extent that peronism was a local version of a broader, global strain of authoritarian thought.
Coca is more widespread in the UP ITTL, and chewing coca is especially common in the armed forces. It's not quite as widespread as, say, mate, but it's relatively well known in most major cities in the country. Cocaine will likely still develop ITTL, though the UP's relationship with the narcotic will probably be unusual.
The conflict in Perú ground to a halt in the 1830s because of the parity between forces and the difficult terrain. By the time the rest of the native-heavy interior falls to the Incan monarchy, the primarily criollo coast is more than happy to get them off their hands. It remains a source of tension, but their interests have diverged since their split.
The 1819 defeat was pretty humbling for its aims, and it also robbed it of its best base for operations along the Uruguay river - a necessity for any operations beyond the range of the Brazilian fleet. The vast majority of the UP-Brazil border is inhospitable jungle, and the border in the Misiones region has been shifted towards the wooded highlands. It is an all around tougher nut to crack than OTL.
Mostly cordial, especially as the USA's expansionism and imperialism is tempered by the fallout of the failed conquest of Texas. Colombia and the US compete occasionally over the Caribbean, but otherwise Bogotá is Washington, DC's favorite interlocutor for Latin America. UP is more closely aligned with the UK, but it has pretty deep economic ties to the US all the same, especially financial.
My dad was a geologist, a few years ago he was invited to Nicaragua, along with numerous engineers of varying kinds, to assess the viability of the proposed canal route.
They all concluded, for a variety of reasons, that a canal wasn't viable or sustainable. Other engineers had other reasons, but for my dad it was the fact that there are active volcanoes all throughout Nicaragua. One slip, slide, quake, or eruption could spell disaster. Ten years after the initial announcement, no ground has been broken on the Nicaragua canal.
They all concluded, for a variety of reasons, that a canal wasn't viable or sustainable. Other engineers had other reasons, but for my dad it was the fact that there are active volcanoes all throughout Nicaragua. One slip, slide, quake, or eruption could spell disaster. Ten years after the initial announcement, no ground has been broken on the Nicaragua canal.
This is an interesting point, and I would like to do more research on the subject of a Nicaraguan canal. I do agree that it's telling that the "less geographically challenging canal" never broke ground IOTL, would you happen to know any sources on the subject?
Note on the next update: it is coming along, I would even go so far as to say that it is coming along nicely. The way I've arrived at my Red Danube is a bit handwavy, but it works well enough for my purposes.
As far as I can tell, no one is willing to yet say that it is unfeasible, just that there is not enough information either way to say that it is or isn't;
And I'm not a geologist or an engineer so I, personally have absolutely zero idea.